Roof collapse

[Happytramp]

I've been on the road in my Cali since early September. Two nights ago whilst sleeping upstairs I awoke to a noise. My roof had lowered itself to within about 6inches of my head. This had taken about 4 hrs because I noticed it had dropped slightly a few hours earlier. Strange thing was that the roof was lifting itself back up. Now I had understood that roof only operates when ignition is on, and it was not. Key was not inserted. Roof had collapsed on driver side only. It was too dark to do anything so I left it till morning. Roof had dropped again on same side. It would not raise until I put key in igniton and started engine as per normal.
I've had vehicle in dealer today (still under warranty), and they say the "pump" is to be replaced. They had not heard of this issue before. Have any of you guys had the unfortunate experience of being a human sandwich.

 

[Californiaman]

Looks scary. Hope no damage was done. I have heard that the roof punps itself back up after a few hours for the first 12 hours and then every 10 or something like that. I've never heard it myself though!

 

[CaliforniaDAN]

Sorry to see your problem with the roof. I take it the bellows were not damaged by the pump failure? If so let's see if VW get out of replacing them.

I think the hydraulic system is supposed to check and reset itself at predetermined times once the roof is locked onto place. The keys do not need to be in the ignition for this. It can be very disconcerting when you are having a sleep to hear the roof adjusting itself at night!

Good to know that the warranty will fix everything.

Maybe the next version of the California will have a manual roof so that there is one thing less to go wrong!

I think there is a bit of over engineering with our Calis, ie the blinds fitted into the linings of he interior so when they go faulty (like mine) we cannot get at them to fix them. Just thought i would throw a little controversy in the forum!

 

[Happytramp]

The bellows were not damaged. It's going in tomorrow for repair of pump. They say it will take 4 or 5 hrs. They will replace the tailgate struts too as they have failed. Van is only 4 months old.

 

[smgcowfoldparts]

We have had one California that has dropped over time on one side and that we the hydraulic ram on the side that it was dropping not the pump. AFAIR the roof will self-level after a certain period of being raised (10 hours I think) and then checks itself again after that I think every 5 hours.

Roof pump takes about 2 hours to replace, a lot of trim has to be removed to access it, but not too bad a job.

cheers and good luck